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Why 'occupy'? It's personal - CNN.com

In the meantime, corporate profits are at an all-time high, but corporations are paying lower taxes than ever before. Some aren't paying any at all. This week, we see banks tacking on extra fees -- which, contrary to what they argue, would lead them to 13% more in profits than they were making before the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act went into effect. At the same time, CEOs, while also making record amounts of money (the average CEO makes $11 million a year while the average person makes $40,000), have laid off millions of Americans while sending our jobs overseas. These are not nameless, faceless Americans. They are our neighbors, our friends and even our families. It is personal.

Republicans continue to protect this twisted system. And to add insult to injury, Republican legislators and the GOP presidential candidates want to eliminate the protections the middle class gained from the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed by Democrats and signed by Obama.

On job creators? Who are they? The majority of job creation comes from our small businesses, none of which are raking in the salaries of the top 1% of wealthy Americans. So asking the top 1% of wealthy Americans to pay their fair share and pay at least as high a tax rate as their workers is not class warfare or an attack on "job creators" or socialism. It is in fact the American way. And America agrees.